


Your Echo Still Rings

by blahblahwhy



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Ghost Drifting, M/M, Post-Canon, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-25 22:53:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blahblahwhy/pseuds/blahblahwhy
Summary: This is not a ghost story.Find him in the drift.





	Your Echo Still Rings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tarlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/gifts).



It had been a shit week for Hercules Hansen.

The world was ending. It was bound to be a shit week. But it just kept getting worse.

After that last Kaiju attack, the one that nearly knocked humanity out of the running entirely, his arm was shot all to hell and he was in no condition to enter a jaeger. So here they sat, at the precipice of what could be humanity’s last and final stand, and here was good ol’ Herc Hansen, chucking a sickie.

He couldn’t believe it. He’d been with the Pan Pacific Defense Corps since practically day one. He had been one of the first Rangers deployed, and he’d piloted every jaeger they’d thrown at him since without injury. But here, right at the end, when it really counted, he’d fucked it all up.

What he wouldn’t give for a fair go: one last good hit on a Kaiju, to really get them where it would hurt most, one last blast to seal the breach and end the tide of monsters.

The plan was the best bad option: toss a thermonuclear charge down the Throat, the portal connecting the breach in our world to the Kaiju home turf. It hadn’t worked before, but this time was different. This time the breach was holding.

Of course, it was holding because the sheer number of monsters traveling through was keeping it open.

Wallowing in worry and self-pity got him nowhere, but he worried that if he stopped, he’d be hit by the enormity of what was about to happen. Marshal Stacker Pentecost was about to enter the drift with his son and they together would try to save humanity from the gravest threat it had ever faced, all while he sat helpless on the sidelines.

He would be runnin the op from the Shatterdome, taking the position of Marshal. He was the second-highest ranking officer in the Shatterdome, and the only one who couldn’t pilot a jaeger. Everyone else was either able-bodied or dead. He was the only idiot in between.

He was a good soldier, and he would do the task in front of him. He would keep his boys safe, to the best of his ability.

Herc took a deep breath and willed himself to be present. Everyone was looking to the Marshal for strength, as they always did. Their faith was not unfounded. He stood like a beacon of hope, the fixed point for everyone present, and Herc’s own personal Southern Cross, always pointing a way forward even in the darkest night.

“Today…” Pentecost said to the assembled group. He shook his head, and took a breath. “Today. At the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other.” He scanned the assembled crowd, his locking briefly with Herc’s. Stacker gave him the smallest of half-smiles, meant only for him, before carrying on with his speech.

“Today there is not a man nor woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today, we are _canceling_ the apocalypse!” he roared.

The crowd roared back, Herc’s voice joining all assembled in a shout of reckless hope.

Looking at Stacker then was a bit like looking at the sun. He was so bright and so big: of course everything changed its course around him. He had held the jaeger program together through sheer force of will, pulling in the Rangers and support teams with the promise not of glory, but of a world made safe once more. Of course Herc had gotten caught in his orbit. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Then: a whirl of activity. The pilots were dressed and prepped, the weaponry loaded, the jaegers charged up and ready. Herc busied himself in the final preparations, running the scans a final time, working with Tendo to make sure everything was ready to go, until there was no delaying it any longer. He’d have to say goodbye. Of course he brought the dog.

He didn’t tell either man what he really meant to say. It was hard, when they’d both been inside his head and lain his secrets bare already. They knew how much he cared for them, how fond he was of them, they must. And yet, still, there was so much to say. There was so much he could not say.

“Stacker,” he called out down the hallway as they walked away from him. They both turned around. “That’s my son you’ve got there,” he said. “My son.”

Stacker nodded. Herc knew he meant it, he knew Stacker would look after Chuck just as he’d look after anyone on his crew. Herc just hoped it would be enough.

Here is what he also meant to say, but didn’t: “Look after yourselves, and each other. Come back to me.” Here is what he really couldn’t say, to each of them: “I love you. Always have, always will.”

By rights, it should have been him fighting by Stacker’s side. They were both old dogs, pilots of another age, when the monsters were smaller but the stakes were just as high. If it hadn’t been for that last Kaiju, dealing that blow to his side of the jaeger… Herc wished that the Kaiju had hit Chuck’s side instead. It was a wish that was both selfish and self-sacrificing. If the Kaiju had just swung the other way, Chuck would have been the one safe and sound in the Shatterdome with his arm caught up in a sling while Herc and Stacker saved the world, side by side.

Herc had to watch both halves of his heart walk down the hallway and strap in for the final mission. It was a famous last stand, one final Galipoli for all mankind, and everyone knew it. This mission was their last hope to turn the tide. He just hoped they could get done what needed doing and come home to him.

Even so, he knew the odds. They weren’t good. Their survival would be a miracle, and Herc knew it. But what was the Jaeger program if not a series of miracles?

And besides, Herc had seen miracles. The first time he’d held his boy warm in his arms, that had been a miracle. When scientists had figured out the neural handshake, that had been a miracle. When he had leant in and kissed Stacker Pentecost on the lips and Staker kissed back, that had been a miracle. Herc would be a fool not to believe.

Herc walked with Max back to the Shatterdome’s main deck. He still had a job to do, and doing it well could keep his boys safe.

From the helm, Herc played his part. He called the shots as best he could from the command deck and hoped like hell it would be enough. It was. Until it wasn’t.

The damn scientists, Newt and Gottlieb, came barging in at the last second, bringing fresh intel that could either doom or save them all. The breach wouldn’t allow just anything through, they said. Had to be a Kaiju, they said. And someone would have to accompany the bomb down.

Herc’s blood ran cold. He knew what was about to happen.

In the end, his boy and Stacker never even made it to the breach, but it didn’t matter. They’d cleared a path, lit the way for Gipsy Danger to make her way down. In the end, Mako and Raleigh had pulled it off.

* * *

They’d stopped the clock.

But they wouldn’t be coming home.

* * *

Herc was underwater. There was water pressing in on all sides, too much, too much, so much. He slept, or he didn’t sleep. For the next week, he sat, or he stood, or he walked, never toward something, standing and listening to the waves.

He was aware that there was work to be done, and that some were doing it. Mako, perhaps, likely filling her father’s shoes with ease. Raleigh, maybe, or Tendo and the scientists, maybe them too. He had been second in command, and ostensibly he was now in charge, Marshal Hercules Hansen, overseeing the decommissioning of the Hong Kong Shatterdome. He saw people bustling, working to take everything apart all around him.

Sometimes he felt like they were taking pieces of his heart with them, breaking it apart piece by piece. Most of the time, though, he felt nothing at all.

He walked Max up and down the hallways late at night. Mako would find him, and take him by the hand, leading him to his bunk where she would hand him a protein bar and a bottle of water, feed Max and leave him to himself.

They’d all lost someone, that day, and in the years prior. Everyone had lost someone to the Kaiju War. He was no different. He had moments of self-awareness, moments where he realized that he was taking this far harder than he had any right to. There were still people depending on him. Hell, Stacker would be telling him, in his terrible Australian accent that he used to tease Herc, that he had better pull his head in, and quick, because their people needed him.

And yet… he had just lost the only two people in his life tethering him to the ground. Without Staker and Chuck, he could swear he was floating in the abyss, drifting closer and closer to the breach every day.

He walked the corridors, not searching for anything, just playing it out, letting his footsteps be the only sounds in the world. His footsteps and the crashing of the waves he could hear inside his head.

* * *

It was another sleepless night when Herc found himself in front of the Jaeger Training Simulator, the training module for new Rangers who hadn’t yet piloted a real Jaeger. He hadn’t been in one of these in years, not since he and Chuck had first begun training-

He cut off that train of thought. It was too much.

It was four in the morning. There was nobody in the corridors, nobody to run a sim with him. That was fine, he thought, following his feet inside the chamber. He didn’t want anyone in his head right now. Or maybe ever again.

He cautiously donned the half-suit hanging next to the sim. It had a simplified helmet and drivesuit, needing only a few points of contact with his skin. That was good -- he hadn’t touched anyone but Max in… weeks. He strapped the belt around his waist and picked up the handle with his good hand. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, beginning the simulation with his non-dominant side and without a copilot. The sim had an auto-handshake mode, a computer-generated autopilot. There was no need for anyone else to join him. Good.

This had been his whole life for so long. He’d narrowly missed being one of the initial test subjects, instead joining up with his brother after the neural handshake had been modified to the two-pilot system. He’d gone through training with his brother, and they’d done alright, until, that is, Scott’s fears and insecurities got the better of him. He’d always been the more anxious of the two of them, but during their fifth Kaiju fight (the fights were much less frequent then), Scott had chased the RABIT so hard it had knocked them both out of alignment.

Scott didn’t have what it took to be a Ranger, but Herc did. And he managed to drift well enough with other Rangers to stay on. Plus, his son was coming up through training, and wouldn't that be a fine to-do: the first father-son Ranger team? 

Going through the motions felt good. His body remembered how to do this, and he felt alive for the first time since the clock stopped. Cautiously, after some warmup stretches, Herc pressed the button to engage the autopilot.

The neural handshake was over in the space of a deep breath.

A deep sense of calm swept over him. He thought he had been calm before, walking the hallways of the Shatterdome over and over, but that had really just been a surreal blankness that had begun to color everything he did these days. The computer program had been coded to complete the neural handshake at a neutral baseline, the most serene someone could feel while drifting. Sure, there were modes with more impulses, things designed to keep you alert and help you learn how to not chase the RABIT. But for the moment, this felt like peace.

It reminded him of drifting with Stacker. Back then, Herc had been proud of his reputation as someone relatively easy to drift with. But Stacker was something else entirely.

Looking back, Herc thought Stacker may hold the distinction of being the only person more easy to drift with them the computer.

It had been nearly five years now since Herc had stepped into a Jaeger with Stacker. Stacker had just returned from his fateful Tokyo trip where his partner, had died. Stacker had somehow wrested the Jaeger to his will, piloting it alone. It was impossible -- no single person could pilot a Jaeger like that, there had been trials, and yet? Here Stacker was, alive if not entirely well, standing in front of him.

Herc was not given to hero worship of flights of fancy. But this was an exception.

Both men had been assigned to the Guam Base, but it was hardly a base at all, really. Nearly all of the territory’s civilians had been evacuated to the Pacific Northwest of the United States, leaving the islands’ infrastructure available to the Jaeger program. But there were no active Jaegers or ranger teams on the island unless a Jaeger was coming in for repairs -- the Jaegers were to protect people, not property, and Guam was primarily a bureaucratic outpost.

Herc and Stacker were both undergoing rehabilitation. Stacker was being evaluated for extreme exposure to radiation as well as psychological damage as a result of his solo piloting trip in Tokyo. Herc’s injury was decidedly less heroic -- nursing a dislocated shoulder that he’d gotten Valparaíso. In a bar fight. After the Kaiju had been taken down.

It was embarrassing, but what could you do? Apparently the answer was “a lot of exercises.”

It was his seventh week of mandatory R&R, and Herc was starting to go a little stir-crazy. The recovery area was very comfortable, his doctors were nice, he was doing his exercises like a good little boy, and the beaches were lovely. But Herc had gotten an itch under his skin. His shoulder was mostly fine, but they weren’t going to release him to active duty for another few weeks at least.

Stacker, though he was technically here for treatment as well, spent his time acclimating himself to his new promotion. He was already mostly in charge of the entire program, although the Pan Pacific Partnership still believed they held the ultimate authority. Sometimes, when life hands you a bunch of monsters from the briny deeps, it also brings you a leader capable of greatness. That was Stacker.

Herc had caught sight of him only a few times during his month and a half at the facility. Mealtimes, mostly, although they had passed each other once in the hallway of the med bay. Stacker had nodded to him, saying “Hansen,” as he passed. It was a good day. The rest of the days were boring as hell.

He finally came to see Stacker in his makeshift office.

“Hansen,” Stacker said, nodding.

“Sir,” Hansen said. “Is… is there anything I can do? I’m going ‘round the twist, doing nothing but dinky exercises.”

“Hansen, your job is to fix that shoulder of yours so that you may get back into a Jaeger as soon as possible.”

“Agreed, sir, but I need to do something -- anything -- in the meantime to help.”

Stacker regarded him carefully for a moment, then nodded. He gave Herc a stack of reports 800 pages thick to read up on, and a stack of a hundred resumes for a new wing of scientific research.

“Come back when you’ve finished those,” Stacker said.

Herc spent most of the next week (when he wasn’t doing his damn exercises) completely immersed in the study of the drift state, maps of the ocean floor, flipping through the hundreds of pages. He wasn’t entirely sure what Stacker wanted him to do with the information -- except the resumes, he knew what to do with those -- but he’d be damned if he didn’t try to understand.

It was on the ninth week of mandatory R&R (and now, a third R, research), that the Kaiju came. Codename Gagana, it was a Category II Kaiju with grasping claws and a harsh beak. The klaxon alarms sounded, and confusion reigned. Herc dashed to the base’s defense perimeter to see Stacker, a beacon of authority, ordering people around.

“Mr. Hansen, so glad you could join us,” Stacker called out to him. Herc hurried over to stand closer.

“A Kaiju attack?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Indeed. Two hours until landfall, and it seems it’s headed straight here.”

Herc nodded. “What do we do?”

“Would you care to take a walk with me in a Jaeger, Mr. Hansen?”

Herc grinned. Finally.

There was a single Jaeger, Spark Indigo, in the Guam base for repairs. It had been recovered off the coast of Bangkok after a harrowing battle that had left a Kaiju dead and Spark Indigo in need of some drastic repairs. Her Ranger team had transferred to a new Jaeger and assigned to Auckland, and Spark Indigo had come for a Guam for a nice vacation.

The Jaeger was still rough-looking, but the mechanics had done a good job. The pilots, on the other hand… A chief of medicine for the facility came up to Stacker and Herc as they were loading in.

“Gentlemen, I must protest,” said the fussy man who meant well. Herc couldn’t help but hide his smile as he tried to stare Stacker down.

“Protest as you will, Doctor,” Stacker said in his quietest and most menacing voice. He leant down a bit to meet the doctor’s gaze. “If you wish to live, you will stand aside.”

“Busted shoulder’s better than dead,” Herc advised, gently leading the shaken doctor a few paces away. “Won’t be long, and then you can fret over us all you like.”

Drifting with Stacker was like drifting with a calm and shining sea.

Herc was impressed in spite of himself. He was swept, as he always was, on a river of memories of his past: a childhood game, resting under the shade of his mother’s big tree, his first kiss, his first time behind the controls of a fighter jet, a bar fight, holding his baby boy in his arms, and so on for a few moments until he snapped back, pleasantly present in the drift.

His research had posited that that was standard -- everyone got the flood of memories, there was no controlling it, and attempts to wrest control of it would bely attempts at a neural handshake. But there was nothing from Stacker. No river of memories, no childhood at the seaside, nothing but calm openness.

They drifted well together, of course they did, and they fought well together (of course they did). The Kaiju was no anklebiter: it was a category three with enough legs to choke a centipede. But each blow from one arm of the Jaeger was followed by a blow from the other arm, Herc and Stacker working in perfect alignment, a symphony of punches and kicks and brutal throws. The battle lasted only a quarter hour, and it was the best quarter hour of Herc’s life.

After the fight was over, and the two men had sat through a bevvy of the concerned doctor’s tests, Stacker cornered Herc in the hallway near their bunks.

“You must be careful Mr. Hansen,” Stacker said, leaning over Herc. “You allow your fears, emotions to rule you. And your… Passions. Your desires.”

"Oh no," thought Herc.

Nevertheless, Herc met his gaze. He was embarrassed that his attraction to Stacker Pentecost -- a superior officer -- it was so obvious and top-of-mind that he had brought it into the drift, but he wasn't ashamed. No, shame was younger man's game, and if Herc had let on just how much he thought about Stacker’s lips, his hands, his wet tongue, and what his cock would feel like with Herc lips wrapped around its shaft, well, so be it. Herc squared his shoulders and set his jaw, prepared for anything.

The best case and most likely scenario was outright rejection. Stacker would look him dead in the eye and say he was that interested. Herc could handle that.

Worst case scenario, Stacker would seize the opportunity to make an example of him, making a public statement about decorum and appropriateness in the workplace. Herc would be dismissed outright.

Herc wasn't looking forward to what he would tell his son. “Sorry, kiddo, I threw away our shot at saving the world because I couldn't stop thinking about copping a root with Stacker fucking Pentecost while we were drifting together.” That would go over real well.

It would be awful to go and leave the Jaeger program while the enemy was still out there, still attacking, but Herc could do it. He could handle that.

Instead, Stacker Pentecost strode straight over, closing the distance between them in a few efficient steps. He leant in, close, so close Herc could feel the heat of his skin and his breath, hot against his ear.

“We shall have a conversation about appropriate workplace relationships at a later date,” the Marshal said.

Herc pulled his head back to meet Stacker’s eyes. “Understood, sir,” he said.

“At the moment, however, I find myself interested in a different conversation entirely,” Stacker said, running a finger along the waistband of Herc’s trousers. He looked down at the bulge in Herc’s pants and raised his eyebrows. “It appears you feel similarly.”

“Sir?” Herc asked, still unsure, still not believing.

Stacker rolled his eyes slightly. “To your bunk, Ranger,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Herc’s eyes went wide and he walked quickly down the hall to his bunk. Yeah. He could handle this.

His bunk was tidy, not as tidy as the Marshal’s he was sure, but decorated only with a few small photographs that he brought with him on every deployment. Herc turned them all to face the wall -- he didn’t need anyone watching.

Stacker entered the room behind him and Herc turned to see him silhouetted in the doorway, looking like salvation. Stacker moved to close the door behind him and Herc took two steps forward, eager but uncertain. He took a deep breath, stepped up to his Marshal, and kissed him on the lips.

Stacker deepened the kiss, running his tongue along Herc’s lower lip until his mouth opened like a flower for Stacker’s tongue.

It had been a long time since Herc had kissed anyone, and he was surprised by how good it was. He was good with his mouth (his lips quirked a little as he imagined making Stacker recognize just how good with his mouth he could be), but Stacker was good too.

Stacker brought up a hand, cradling Herc’s head, and Herc made a little whining sound. He began to try to unfasten Stacker’s Ranger suit without looking, which was a fool’s game.

Stacker chuckled, quiet and low. “Slowly, slowly,” he said, and led Herc over to the bed.

Herc worked efficiently to undress Stacker, unfastening his armor and laying it aside. He went to unbuckle Stacker’s belt and Stacker placed a hand over his, leaning in for a kiss instead. Herc obliged, kissing Stacker with enthusiasm and working the hem of his shirt up over his torso. Herc broke the kiss, encouraging Stacker to lift his arms over his head, and pulled the shirt all the way off.

Stacker met his gaze and leant back, daring Herc to look at his exposed skin. Herc had expected the hard muscles and soft curves, and the small patches of short, curly body hair; they had played a major role in his late-night fantasies. He hadn’t expected to see scars, long thin ones running up his abdomen, across his chest and down his arms, tracing the outlines and seams of the Ranger suit against his skin.

The scars were healed, but clearly recent, the skin still raised and slightly pink in places.

Herc looked at Stacker’s face, which was impassive. He reached out toward the lines on his shoulder, tentatively, afraid to ask permission to touch outloud. Stacker leant forward into his hand, and Herc traced them down, laying his hand over Stacker’s heart.

He could feel it beat beneath his fingertips: steady, but accelerated.

“Was this…?” Herc asked, suddenly not knowing how to phrase the question.

“Nobody knew what to expect when piloting a Jaeger alone,” Stacker said. “It takes a toll on the body.”

“Yes,” Herc breathed. “I can see that.”

Herc ran a finger down one of the scars, all the way to Stacker’s wrist. His brows drew together. “Does it hurt?”

“Not much,” Stacker said, “And nothing you might do will hurt me any further.”

Herc tentatively licked the scar across Stacker’s pectoral muscle, and was rewarded with a small gasp. Interesting.

He licked across the other one, teasing at his nipple with his lips. Stacker’s breath caught and he moaned, just a little, in the back of his throat.

Herc grinned, and began working his mouth over every line of scar he could find, teasing down Stackers chest and across his abdomen, before bringing his mouth back to his nipples. He looked up and met Stacker’s gaze. He was panting as he watched Herc lip his way over his chest, pupils blown wide.

Stacker reached down and gripped the fabric of Herc’s shirt in both fists, pulling it roughly up and over Herc’s head. Herc lifted his arms to help, and Stacker grunted, pointing.

“Ranger, what is that?”

Herc wrestled the rest of the way out of the shirt on his own.

“What is what?” he asked.

Stacker ran a flat hand against the ribs Herc’s his left side, where old scar tissue criss crossed his flesh.

“Nothing, no worries, ages ago, very old injury…” he said, turning a bit red.

Stacker continued palming his flesh over the scar tissue as though he didn’t believe Herc.

There was nothing for it. He was going to have to tell the sheep story.

His father had worked at a sheep station out in the outback. One summer, when Herc was old enough for some backbreaking work but still a young whacka, he had been assigned to mend some fences. One day one of the ewes took umbrage at his presence on the line and tried to charge him. Herc had been able to dodge the sheep, but the idiot had run right over his roll of barbed wire. The sheep, not the most intelligent creature to begin with, got rightly freaked out, came back around, and charged again.

That time Herc wasn’t so lucky, getting himself both trampled (leaving bruises that smarted for months) and slashed with a bale full of barbed wire tugged along by a mad sheep.

Herc related the story in as few words as possible, trying not to make eye contact with Stacker. When he finished his story and looked up, Stacker sat, expressionless.

“You are telling me that Mark 1 pilot and top Ranger Hercules Hansen, Kaiju scourge of the South China Sea and golden boy of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, hero to his homeland…” Stacker said, pausing dramatically, “was once taken out by a crazed ovine?”

“Listen, have you ever gone face to face with a mad sheep with nothing between you but some open air and dust? Sheep have some of the devil in them, that’s what my old man always said, and after that day I believed him!” Herc realized Stacker had let his face relax into an easy smile. He was even chuckling at Herc’s misfortune.

He reached out and tweaked his nipple again, cutting Stacker off mid-chuckle and making him gasp. Herc reached for Stacker’s belt buckle once more, and this time he allowed it, lifting his hips to help Herc ease his pants off.

Herc had broken Stacker’s composure once today. He couldn’t wait to do it again, and more thoroughly this time.

Herc could see the bulge in Stacker’s pants, and Herc placed his hand over it, rubbing gently. Stacker’s hips bucked up into his palm, and Herc leant down, mouthing over the thin layer of fabric. He could feel the heat rising off Stacker’s body. He darted his tongue into the slit in his boxer briefs, and delighted in Staker’s hitched breaths.

Herc grabbed the pants by the waistband and pulled them down off Stacker’s hips, freeing his length. Herc’s mouth watered as he gazed at it, but he also knew Stacker wanted it slow. He reached down and placed his hand over Stacker’s cock, flexing his palm over the shaft.

Herc was overcome with the realization that he held the center point of the entire Pan Pacific Defense Corps system in his hand. This was a project that relied on the collective action of entire nations and all of humankind, but at its center was one man, Marshal Stacker Pentecost, rising above the rest to ensure the safety and stability of the human race. Herc had begun in the program right after, but he understood that he would never be able to bear the burden that Stacker bore every day. He understood that he could never have the eyes of the entire world turned toward him, expecting to be led to salvation.

And yet, Stacker could. And he was here with him, now. Herc’s heart swelled. He could do his part to offer some relief to the last hope of the human race.

Herc closed his fist on Stacker’s cock and was rewarded with a breathy moan. He could do this.

* * *

Back in the present, Herc ducked out of the drift apparatus and knelt on the floor, tears streaming from his eyes. He’d chased the RABIT all the way back to Guam. It had felt so real, but Stacker wasn’t there. Stacker was dead.

He had known it was real before, but he hadn’t quite understood, not like he did now, that he’d never hold Stacker in his arms again, never taste his lips again, never be able to run his palms over scar tissue and tense muscles and be able to take away some of the tension, the strain of holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Herc got up and staggered to the doorway. He didn’t know if he could do this.

* * *

Night after night, Herc returned to the drift simulator. He never again chased the RABIT straight into his memories, but he found he could feel traces of his life with Stacker, or, rather, traces of the man himself, when he was drifting.

It was strange that he felt closest to Stacker there -- not while he lay in the bed they’d shared many times, not while he stood at the control panel almost able see Stacker calmly ordering the deployment of the final Jaegers. He sometimes felt a spark of Stacker when he spoke with Mako, but that was different, and besides, that only served to remind him that he’d lost a son out there as well.

The hours were long, but the days passed quickly. He fell into a routine, waiting until everyone had left the main hangar bay, until all shifts were over for the day (no more Kaiju meant no more need for a night shift), and then he’d go to the corridor with the drift simulator.

At first, just the presence of the stillness in the computer was enough. It felt so real, so vivid. It felt like Stacker was there with him, drifting with him once more.

After a week of drifting in the simulator every night, though, Herc began to hallucinate as well. At least, that was what he figured it was -- he’d been feeling Stacker’s presence, sure, but that could be just a strong memory, and there was the first time when he’d chased the RABIT. But he’d never… he’d never seen him before.

He looked over one night, his neural handshake with the computer strong, wrapped up in the stillness of the simulated drift, thinking of nothing but eyes the color of a sparkling pond at night, dark skin, and lines of scars tracing out constellations of a fight he’d never truly come back from. And Herc saw Stacker, somehow both plain as day and fuzzy at the edges, indistinct, drifting beside him.

He figured that this, too would pass. It was likely a normal part of the grieving process or some shit. Maybe he’d bring it up with the psych doc if he ever got around to going, like Tendo said he should.

But it kept happening. Every night he’d look over, and every night he’d see the ghost of the man he’d known better than anyone else ever had.

Herc never wanted it to stop.

He couldn’t believe his eyes, of course. It wasn’t real, of course. It didn’t feel like he was chasing the RABIT every night, he wasn’t fixating on memories like he had that first night. Instead, every night, he was seeing Stacker as though in life: strong, stoic, and fighting beside him.

Together, he and the ghost (he wasn’t sure when he started thinking about it as a ghost) began running the simulations in the computer, working their way up like new recruits. The computer began spitting the simulations in chronological order from the first Kaiju. They fought Trespasser as it tried to destroy San Francisco, performing perfectly in sync, right hooks followed by lefts, two halves of a whole, just as they had that time in Guam.

* * *

“Hey Herc.”

Raleigh stood against the door frame outside the office in which Herc had taken to spending his days, studiously trying to avoid talking to other humans.

“Raleigh,” he said, not bothering with niceties. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” Raleigh said. It was clear he was as uncomfortable with this interaction as Herc was.

“Wonderful,” Herc said. He gestured toward his computer as though he needed to be carrying on with something.

“It’s just…” Raleigh tried again. “Mako asked me to check in on you. She’s worried. We all are.”

Herc looked up and consciously let go of the mask he was wearing, allowing his face to show the pain he was in. He didn’t cry, but it had the intended effect. Raleigh looked uncomfortable.

“Listen, Herc, after Yancy died I was real torn up about it for a long time,” he said. “I stepped away from the Jaeger program entirely. I hid on the Wall for five years until the Marshal came to find me.”

He stopped short, realizing that he’d used the wrong term. Technically, Herc was the Marshal now, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He was sure he looked at least as tired as he felt, which meant he was nobody’s idea of leader.

How could he be? How could he fill his shoes?

Raleigh looked away. “Listen, I know what it’s like to lose a co-pilot. If you ever need to talk…”

Herc suddenly looked up at him. “Did you ever find him again? In the drift?”

Raleigh gave him a sad half-smile.

“Yeah, man. Sometimes, when I’m drifting, it’s like he’s right there with me. Not as much, now that I’ve got Mako, of course. But sometimes I can still feel him in my memory, plain as day.”

Herc nodded to himself. This was probably normal.

That night, in the sim, after he and Stacker had defeated Hundun at Manila in 2014, he looked over. Stacker was there, all right, but still insubstantial. Just his memories, stacking on top of each other. He sighed and switched off the sim.

Except… Stacker didn’t go anywhere. As Herc watched, Stacker turned and met his gaze with an intensity he hadn’t seen since, well, since they’d been lying, side by side, sharing a bunk. Stacker’s eyes no longer looked insubstantial or ghostly at all; they were real, real and deep and dark and true.

Herc found his breath catching in his chest.

“Stacker,” he breathed, not sure it was true. This couldn’t be memory, but what else could it be?

Stacker kept his gaze and nodded once, deliberately, solemnly. His eyes burned into Herc’s, trying to communicate something deep and real.

“Where are you?” Herc asked.

Stacker moved his eyes up, and Herc followed them, looking up, as though the ceiling of the sim could provide any insight. He looked back down to see Stacker shaking his head, and realized Stacker had been rolling his eyes at him.

In spite of himself, Herc laughed. His laugh sounded loud to his own ears, and he realized he hadn’t laughed in, well. It had been far too long.

Herc smiled sadly at Stacker’s ghost. “I miss you,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m doing here without you.”

Stacker gave him a small, sad smile back and, slowly, deliberately, stepped toward him. It shouldn’t have been possible: they were both locked into the sim’s piloting unit, which was static.

Except, and Herc kicked himself for being an idiot, of course Stacker wasn’t locked in. Stacker wasn’t here. Not really.

Stacker was still walking toward him. They were close now, chest to chest. Stacker leant down and gave Herc one single, solid kiss.

It felt real. Hell, it _was_ real. It took Herc’s breath away.

“Find me,” Stacker breathed. Although it was little more than a whisper, his voice held the same authority and intensity as always. “Find us.”

Then he drifted away, disappearing from Herc’s view, leaving him all alone in the sim room.

Herc looked around, baffled.

“Well, where the _fuck_ are you, mate?!” he yelled to the empty air. Somewhere, he could sense Stacker rolling his eyes at him again. Not _fucking_ fair.

Herc walked back to his bunk with a new purpose. Stacker had told him to “find us.” That meant he was out there, somewhere, and so was his boy. Herc would find them both, or die trying.

* * *

Herc decided to go to Mako first. She’d know what to do.

In his grief, he’d left most of the work of decommissioning the Shatterdome to her. She was good at it, taking to leadership just like her father. She was as much a fixed point as he had been. Still was, somewhere out there.

Maybe.

Unless he’d really lost it.

He walked over to Mako where she ate in the mess hall (which was much emptier now than he remembered, interesting). Raleigh was there too, which Herc decided was fine.

After greeting them and a few moments of penetrating small talk (mostly about his diet and sleeping habits), he finally wrestled himself into asking the hard question.

“Mako,” he said, looking at her steadily, trying to seem as sane as possible. “What if I told you the Marshal was still out there somewhere?”

Mako’s eyes shone with sadness.

“He always is,” she said, with certainty. “He always will be.”

“Yes, but I mean really,” Herc said. “I think he’s really out there somewhere.”

“Yes, we will always find him in the drift,” Mako said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “That is where he told us he’d be waiting.”

“Right,” said Herc. That was clearly that.

Back in the Kaiju sim that night, he suited up once again and was unsurprised to find he was drifting again with Stacker’s ghost. He tried to speak with it, but the phantasm was unresponsive. He settled in for more fighting through the early Kaiju. These first few fights were an interesting challenge. They were all lower-category Kaiju, but no Jaeger had faced them before. In training they’d watched the tapes and fought sims of all the other Kaiju fights endlessly, trying to glean weaknesses that could be applied to future fights. These felt like brand new once more.

That night he fought through Kaiceph, the Kaiju that had ravaged Cabo San Lucas, and then settled in for something he’d been waiting for.

Scissure had attacked Sydney on September 2, 2014, and it had been up to the proud members of the Royal Australian Air Force, including a young Hercules Hansen, to answer the call. He’d been present at the battle, but it was one he’d replayed over and over again. What could have happened if he’d found the weak spot sooner?

Now he had a chance, and a 8,000 tonne robot to back him up.

He punched and kicked with ferocity, as always, with Stacker’s backup, as always. When he was ready, his Jaeger, armed with an electrified lance, landed a perfect uppercut right in the creature’s exposed throat. It was a thing of beauty.

As he pulled the lance out, he gave a small salute to the simulated fighter jet he recognized as the one he had piloted.

As the sim wound down, he heard a warm chuckle. Stacker was there again, with the same intensity and realness as he had been the night before.

“Fast work,” he said.

“Yeah,” Herc said, rubbing at the back of his neck, a little sheepish but also proud.

“Stop this.”

“Stop what?” Herc asked, confused. When Stacker merely stared back, unblinking, Herc lost it.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to stop this,” he yelled. “It’s the only thing I can do that feels like it means anything anymore, and it’s the only place-” His voice broke as he choked back a sob.

“It’s the only place I can still see you,” he said, breathing hard and looking down at the floor. “I can’t… I can’t give that up.”

“You need to find us.”

Herc heard Stacker say those words, but when he looked up, he was gone. Vanished without a trace.

Was it vain hope? Or were Stacker and his boy really out there in the world somewhere? Somewhere he could go or bring them back from, somewhere he could touch once more?

* * *

 

As he was eating lunch in the mess hall (he was eating again, regularly; that was good), he caught sight of the small squirrely American scientist, the one with all the theories. He steered his way over to him.

“Heya… Newtsy,” he said. He couldn’t, for the life of him, remember the man’s full name.

That appeared to be sufficient. The small man’s eyes lit up as he masticated a bite of food far too large for his mouth.

“Herc!” he said, still chewing. Herc tried not to pull a face.

“Er, yeah.” Herc got right to the point. “You’re the one who knows about the throat and all the rest of the Kaiju transit mumbo, yeah?”

“I’m your guy!” Newt said.

“Listen. Is it, er, possible that something could survive in the breach?”

“You mean like a Kaiju? Not really. We blew the Breach up from their side, remember?” He took another bite, waving his sandwich around. “It was kind of a big day.”

Herc sighed.

“I mean like a person,” Herc said. “People.”

“Like a person? Like who?” Newt’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, you mean the Marshal and Chuck? No, not possible. Not remotely. Unless…”

Herc could tell New was no longer looking at him. He was looking beyond, trying to visualize the breach.

“Well, so the breach needs Kaiju DNA to get open, right? And the explosion of their Jaeger blew up a bunch of Kaiju that had just come through the breach, right?”

“Yeah,” Herc said, willing him forward.

“So maybe, what if, like, there was just enough of the Kaiju DNA to get their bodies through to the Breach? There’s no water there, so they wouldn’t drown. I don’t know if there’s air there, so they might not be able to breathe either.”

That was it. It was vain to hope.

“But what I’m saying is… maybe,” Newt said. “There’s a chance. It’s an infinitesimally small chance, but it’s there.”

Herc’s entire body let go of some of the tension he hadn’t even realized it had been holding. He nearly sobbed into his plate of food, lying untouched in front of him.

“Listen, Newtsy-”

“You know infinitesimal means it’s very small, right?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“It’s like, not even one in a million. Maybe one in a billion. Probably more… wait, what?” Newt looked at Herc.

“You’ve seen him?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ve seen Stacker. Talked to him even. In the Drift.”

“No,” Newt said. “That’s not possible. You can’t drift from the Breach.”

“I am,” Herc said. “Drifting from the Breach. With him.”

Newt squinted up at him, trying to see if he was lying. “Can you prove it?” Newt asked.

“Maybe,” Herc said.

* * *

The simulator kept track of brainwaves, of course. For Herc it was an unnecessary functionality -- his brain was just fine at carrying half a neural load -- but it remained installed as a sort of safeguard for new recruits. Herc and Newt stood together at the simulator’s main computer, looking at a readout of recent activity. Herc accessed the file that had a recording of the most recent session and hit play.

It had two tracks, one for each person in the sim, one for each hemisphere of the brain. At first, it was just Herc’s brain waves reacting to the sim, tracking his brainwaves in real time, then, little by little, tiny peaks appeared on the other pilot’s track. Herc took a deep breath, trying to figure out what this could mean.

“That’s… not normal for a single-pilot test,” Newt said, half to himself.

“No kidding,” Herc said.

They watched as the battle with Kaiceph ended. Both tracks stilled as the next simulation was loaded.

“This could change our entire understanding of what it means to drift!” Newt said.

“Yeah,” Herc said.

“This could change our understanding of life itself! Of souls! Of the afterlife!”

“He says he’s still alive.”

“Wait,” Newt said, turning to Herc. “You’ve _talked_ to him?”

Herc’s answer was cut off by the machine as it began running through the brainwave scan of the Scissure battle. Both tracks were jumping up and down, brainwaves coming hot and fast from what appeared to be two brains.

Newt’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. “This is _incredible_ ,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone else in here with you?”

“Well,” said Herc. “Like I said…”

“I mean nobody _who isn’t a ghost,_ ” Newt said. “This is amazing!”

“Always was,” Herc said.

* * *

Herc and Newt went to Mako with a printout of the brainwave scan. She was skeptical, but trusted the two of them.

“You know this is impossible,” she said.

“Yes,” Herc said.

“I know!” Newt shouted. “It’s amazing!”

Mako stood, staring at the second track for what seemed like hours. She finally looked up at them.

“I need to try,” she said.

By that point, it was nearly lights-out. Herc encouraged her to go through her normal end-of-day procedures, in part not to cause alarm but also in part to replicate, as closely as possible, his own grief-stricken nighttime sims.

Finally, at two in the morning, Mako suited up, and went into the sim chamber.

The next two hours were some of the longest of Herc’s life. What if she didn’t see him? What if he didn’t come for her? What if… what if it had been Herc’s imagination, backed up by some freak computer bug this whole time?

Herc paced up and down the corridor and chewed his knuckles until they nearly bled.

Finally, hours later, Mako emerged, blinking away tears.

Herc could hardly even hope. He held his breath as she looked him right in the eye.

“We leave in the morning,” she said. “We must find a way to get them.”

* * *

Mounting a rescue mission that morning was overly optimistic. First of all, none of them had slept. Second, none of them actually had any idea how to go about it.

Finally it was the other scientist fellow, the German one, Gottlieb, who came up with a plan. He presented it on the main deck of the Shatterdome to the remaining personnel.

Not many were left. Most of the Shatterdome had been shut down and was operating with a skeleton crew. Mako was there, of course, as well as Raleigh and Tendo. The scientists, and a few of the remaining support staff were all that was left of the once-busy operation.

“ _If_ my colleague Newton’s theory is correct-” he began.

“It is,” Newt interjected.

“-then we must assume the Breach, and perhaps, by extension, the throat, though inactive, still exists,” Gottlieb said.

“It’s basically like a revolving door,” Newt said, talking over Gottlieb. “Before, all it was doing was spitting out Kaiju, boom, boom, boom,” he said, miming Kaiju exiting the a spinning revolving door. “But then, we went in, and blew it up.” He mimed an explosion with his hands, complete with sound effects.

Gottlieb jumped in. “It is our hypothesis,” he said, “that the Breach, which is to say the mechanism by which the Kaiju entered world, is still extant.”

“Basically,” Newt said, “We maybe just blew up the building, or part of the hallway, but that revolving door that spit out all the Kaiju? That’s still there.”

“And it is our belief that it is possible that two grievously injured Rangers may be held there in some sort of suspended animation,” Gottlieb said. “I feel I must caution, however, that the likelihood of this is quite low. But we must try.”

“Yeah,” Newt said. “We gotta try.”

“Now remember,” Newt said, “the Breach only opens if you can trick it into thinking it’s opening for a Kaiju. Which means we’re going to have to get enough Kaiju DNA to figure that out. Luckily, I know a guy.”

“Additionally,” Gottlieb said, “we have no more Jaeger. What’s the plan?”

Tendo spoke up first. “I think I have an idea.”

* * *

To be fair, this was a dumb idea. Hong Kong had pulled the wreckage of the Crimson Typhoon out of the Bay in preparation for a memorial to their hometown heros, the Wei Tang brothers. It wasn’t much, but they called back some of the local crew, and, with a few days’ work, it was functional enough to get them to the Breach and back. Probably.

Newt had met with Hannibal Chao and had come back with all the Kaiju Blue he could carry, as well as a couple of Kaiju bones. He strapped the bones to the waist of the robot, then set to painting the Crimson Typhoon blue. He whistled while he worked, which drove everyone else up the wall.

There was the small matter of who would go down on the retrieval mission. Herc’s arm was mostly better, but his partners were down in the breach. Mako and Raleigh were more than willing, but Herc couldn’t hardly bear to give up this opportunity to reunite with his… the two people who meant the world to him, the ones who hung the moon and lit the night sky.

Eventually, though, logistics won the day, and he was stuck at Mission Control with Tendo, unable to do anything but watch.

This mission was desperate, that much he knew. It was unlikely that they could even enter the Breach in the first place, and, if they did, equally unlikely that they would be able to make their way out. He could very well be sending the only Rangers left in the entire world on a suicide mission. Even if they did make it in and out okay, there was only the slimmest margin of a chance that Stacker and Chuck would be in there, alive, and in any shape to make the trip back.

They had blown themselves up, he remembered. They had saved the world.

Still, Herc couldn’t help but hope. What else was there?

What had Stacker said, all that time ago? At the edge of all hope, we must choose to believe in ourselves, and in each other?

It was something like that. Sounded better when he said it.

Herc watched as Crimson Typhoon, now rechristened Blue Typhoon, stalked off into the ocean. He bit at his knuckles as he watched the dot on the screen advancing slowly… slowly.

Eventually the comms crackled.

“We’re here,” came Raleigh’s voice. “I don’t… ah.”

“Can you enter?” Tendo asked into the microphone.

“Looks like it might work,” Raliegh said. “It just started glowing. We’ll see you on the other side!” he said.

The dot disappeared.

Herc froze. He held his breath. He didn’t dare change one particle of the world, just in case that swayed the outcome against his favor. If he didn’t move, Stacker and Chuck would still be alive, and Raleigh and Mako would be fine, they would be coming out the other side any moment. He could just hang here, on the precipice, as long as the universe needed in order for it to rearrange itself so that his son and love would be okay and Raleigh and Mako would make it back alive.

He couldn’t do anything but hope, as hard as he could, and believe in himself and in the others.

It lasted for infinity. And maybe twenty-five seconds.

Then, the comms crackled once more.

“We’re out!” Raleigh’s voice said, over the comms. “They’re here. We’re coming home.”

Herc led the cheer in the control room, pounded Tendo on the back so hard he started coughing, and then sat in the chair next to him, and immediately fell into the deepest slumber of his life.

* * *

When Blue Typhoon arrived back on shore, it was barely worse for the wear. Her pilots were exhausted, and her passengers required immediate medical attention, but the Jaeger herself was just fine. There had been no fight, no battle to be won or lost. Just a rescue mission, and went well.

Herc followed them to hospital to check on his boys. Chuck was unconscious, and had been since the explosion, according to Stacker's report. Herc grasped Chuck’s hand, trying to tell him through a single touch how happy he was Chuck was back. 

His son didn't stir, but it was no matter. He could always tell him in the drift. Later.

Next he visited Stacker, who was awake.

Herc sat down, tentatively, on Stacker’s bed. He swept his gaze over Stacker’s injured body, bruises and cuts crisscrossing scar tissue.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner,” he said, lowering his head into his hands.

“You came for me,” Stacker said, reaching up to stroke his face.

“I thought you were dead,” Herc said. A tear fell from the corner of his eye, and another and another until knelt and buried his head in Stacker's hip, weeping.

“So did I,” Stacker said. “It turns out that Breach is something we hadn’t bargained for.”

“How do you mean?” Herc asked, turning his face to look at him. He was staring intently at something that wasn't there.

“We blew ourselves up,” Stacker said, then gave a small shrug and looked down at him. “It put us back together again.”

“That means…” Herc’s mind filled with the possibilities: likely as not the Kaiju War wasn’t won, and this period of peace was just a ceasefire.

“Yes,” Stacker said. “And it's something that will require our full attention tomorrow. But not right now.”

He gingerly shifted his weight, making room on the narrow hospital bed for Herc. Herc lay down next to him, and gave him the gentlest kiss he could.

“I am so happy you’re back,” he said.

“Yes,” Stacker said, and they drifted off together.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my expert in Australian slang, fangirl_squee!


End file.
